


testing the ropes

by lovebalance



Series: cyber-connection. [3]
Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, F/F, Minor Mentions of Violence, Slow Burn, implied future relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 11:06:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18467689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovebalance/pseuds/lovebalance
Summary: "It just turns out my enemies are my old friends."





	testing the ropes

**Author's Note:**

> read the previous two parts of this so it makes sense!

Jiwoo wasn’t sure what her uncle was thinking.

There isn’t a time where she can’t remember someone being after her, in every sense of the word. She was born with a bright red target on her back, on her forehead, on her name. She couldn’t enter places without being looked at, admired, feared, or everything in between. She knew this, but she didn't mind it at all.

She was a little spoiled, sure, but others had spoiled her by choice. Even her uncle, who was starting to get on her nerves these days. Ever since her dad died, and her mother flew to Hong Kong, she’s been staying in a loft paid for by him, and she liked it this way. She didn’t talk to him, didn’t impose on meetings when she could have. Jiwoo was perfectly fine with her life, no matter how dark it got.

So, Jiwoo just couldn’t understand why. Why had her uncle hired a personal bodyguard to stay with her at all times? Jiwoo hates being watched up close.

The woman was pretty for sure, with one neon red electric eye, the other a dark brown. Her hair was a sandy blonde, and she didn’t smile much, but that was fair. Jiwoo wasn’t smiling at her either.

“I don’t get it, I’m not a baby,” Jiwoo complains into the COM, listening to the rumble of a moving car from her uncle’s side. He sighs, clearly annoyed because this was the fourth time Jiwoo had complained.

“ _For your own safety, Jiwoo_.”

“I haven’t needed this kind of safety before. I’m **fine,** ” She looks into the woman’s eyes, Jungeun. Jungeun just blinks at her, clearly unimpressed by Jiwoo’s whining. She can mind her business.

“ _Jiwoo, darling, we have to talk later, you can explain yourself then_.”

“But,”

“ _Goodbye, sweetheart._ ”

Jiwoo puffs her cheeks out as the COM dies before she runs her hands through her hair. She dyed it recently, a bright red to celebrate her birthday. She runs her fingers through her hands a few more times before she looks deep into Jungeun’s eyes.

“How much is he paying you?”

“Excuse me?”

“I can pay you two times more to leave.”

Jungeun gives a tight-lipped smile before she crosses her arms and leans in. “I doubt it.”

“What, why not?”

“There’s no way, your uncle would pay me triple to have me stay,” Jungeun looks her up and down, her neon red eye slower than the brown one. “Plus, I bet you would use your uncle’s money anyway.”

Jiwoo feels her cheeks heat up as Jungeun leans away, and she squints. She fans her face with both of her hands, sitting down on her fluffy white chair.

“Fine.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“Follow me to go shopping.”

___

Yerim is spinning a knife between her fingers.

It’s been a long time since she mastered that trick, but she can do it now without cutting open her skin. She sits on the broken brown chair, looking up at the large monitor as the words on the screen cycle and change. Information was coming in every day, and she was the keyholder of it,

She taps a button, and in the corner of the large left screen, the news pops up. She picks up a piece of chicken from the plate in front of her and chews it slowly as she opens the screen larger. Some new breakthrough regarding prosthetic arms. Yerim flexes her own spray-painted black arm, tapping one cool finger onto her cheek while looking on with reserved want. She wants to be richer, richer than any hacker in the world, and she wants to pay for her own arm. Yerim knows what kind she wants too, one that’s sleek and purple. She’s been eyeing this new model that came out recently, and it costs a lot of credits.

So many, she might start killing in Jinsol’s place.

“Hey,” Haseul walks in, wrapped up in a large black hoodie. Yerim zooms out of the news, and back to the screen filled with numbers and names. “You don’t have to hide it from me. I know you’re looking at new parts.”

Yerim shrugs. “Just thinking of buying things with the money we don’t have.”

Haseul lays a soft hand on her shoulder, and Yerim pouts. “I’m not that sensitive about it,” she defends herself, shaking the hand off her shoulder. She is, just a bit.

“Where’s the wild one?”

“Who knows, these days?”

Yerim scrolls through all of Jinsol’s confirmed kills and thinks about the last time she saw her. She fought with her and threw a bottle in a red hot rage. Her arm had overheated at the strong throw, and Jinsol had walked out and had not walked back in. Only sending over the credits she’s been earning through links, while Yerim sends back information about her next kill.

“She’s still pissed at me.”

“No, I just think she’s distracted these days. Says she’s got something big.”

Yerim pouts, twirling her chair around three times. “Well, she should tell us what it is. I don’t like not...knowing,” Yerim looks up at Haseul and frowns. Haseul lets out an amused laugh and rubs the top of Yerim’s head.

Haseul stays with her a bit before she gets a call, and she excuses her self. Yerim turns back towards her computer, looking at names that popped up, almost zoning out again, before a new name pops up.

It’s a woman’s name. Wong Kahei.

She clicks the name, and a pretty woman looks back on the screen. Yerim hums, before typing her name into the search and…

Nothing pops up. No childhood photos, no related names. It’s just an empty field. This has never happened before. Just a few links to the police station, but that’s it. She clicks it, and waits, but sees the same picture of the woman again. Huh, that’s strange.

She hacks into the database of the police and pulls up everything, but again, there’s barely anything again. She takes note of a phone number and looks up the names to everyone connected to the number. Only two people pop up. One is a man who has no picture up, and another is a girl named Olivia. That’s it.

Yerim rubs her chin with her metal fingers, trying to find anything, and it feels like a bit before she finally finds something. A face.

Yerim pouts. What a pretty face it was.

___

Sooyoung has Jinsol’s head in her lap, the other woman sleeping. Sooyoung looks down at her, at how the blue lights reflect off her face as the bus drives slowly in the traffic. There’s only one other person on this bus, an older man with ten plastic bags and a missing leg. He stays silent, but Jinsol can hear the generator that powers his breathing, loud like a steam-engine.

The bus has no driver, just connected through signals in the air, and it slowly turns a corner and pulls up to the next stop. Sooyoung traces her finger over Jinsol’s eye and smiles despite herself, as the bus pulls to a stop. The man looks up and slowly gets off, and Sooyoung is sure no one’s going to get on the bus again, but then someone does.

She can’t see the woman’s face, tall as she was, but Sooyoung looks on, curious. Jinsol shifts, adjusting her position before breathing slowly. Sooyoung runs fingers through her blonde hair and looks at the woman as she sits down. She doesn’t want Jinsol to wake up, she’s been awake for three days.

The bus moves and Sooyoung looks in the reflection of the bus, trying to see the woman’s face. She likes knowing her surroundings, after all. She squints, and the woman turns her head towards the window, and that’s when she sees.

Sooyoung feels her eyes go wide, and the woman turns towards her quickly, bright green eyes wide. “Holy shit,” Sooyoung whispers. “It’s you.”

Hyunjin doesn’t wait for another moment after that. She jumps up, and before Sooyoung can call out again, she breaks the large bus window with her elbow. There’s suddenly loud sounds of horns honking, the wind rushing in, Jinsol’s screams once before she’s leaping up. It’s suddenly chaos as Hyunjin throws a piece of glass towards them, and Jinsol pushes Sooyoung towards the ground. The bus comes to an emergency stop, the lights changing from blue to red, and when Jinsol looks, that woman is gone.

She looks back down at Sooyoung’s face, with her eyes blown wide, and the woman speaks. “I knew her.”

Jinsol just stares and laughs a bit as she hears horns and sirens of the police. She can ask later, but for now, they had to go.

___

Jiwoo can tell Jungeun is getting irritated by being in this store, but she could care less. She was stressed, and the more clothes she made Jungeun carry, the better she felt. She spins around for the clerk, a young person with a red bow in their hair, and they give her a thumbs up. The suit was a fading red, with a glittering white shirt inside, one Jiwoo has been eyeing for weeks, and she was going to finally buy it. She looks in the mirror, running her hand through her hair to give it a slicked-back look before her eyes meet Jungeun’s in the mirror.

They stare at each other for a bit, before Jiwoo breathes in and turns, hands on her hips.

“You,” Jungeun raises a perfect eyebrow. “What do you think? Honestly.”

There’s a moment’s pause, before Jungeun shrugs. “You look handsome.”

That makes Jiwoo happy. “Really?” She turns towards the mirror again and adjusts her jacket. “You think so?” Jungeun doesn’t make any movement to answer again, and Jiwoo says “Ring this up for me! All of it.”

The clerk nods, before rolling away, and the clothes vanish into air. Jiwoo pats down her black skirt, before hopping off the stool, directly into Jungeun’s face. Jungeun just stares at her, and Jiwoo sighs. “If you want to call me spoiled, you should just do it. I hate when people hold in their thoughts around me.”

Jiwoo expects Jungeun to remain silent, but the woman replies, “I don’t think you need me to tell you, you're spoiled.”

Jiwoo blinks. “So you do think I am.”

“Yes.”

Jiwoo blinks and smiles. She turns around as the clerk rolls back with four bags filled with clothes, and takes them before Jungeun does. “Could you show me your best bright red dresses,” she turns towards Jungeun. “I want to have her try some on.”

Jungeun can’t form a response quick enough before Jiwoo is following the clerk.

*

Jiwoo wants to walk back to her place. It’s only about twenty-five minutes by foot, and Jungeun doesn’t have any right to protest because “You work for me, remember?”

Jiwoo takes a blind enjoyment out of seeing Jungeun carry all the bags, even though she looks like she’s not struggling at all. Not fair, Jiwoo would have been tripping in her heels by now.

“Where are you even from?” Jiwoo is walking backward and looks at the other woman, whose face was illuminated a faint purple.

“It doesn’t really matter, I’m not there anymore.”

Jiwoo raises her hands in mock defense and turns around. She looks up towards the tall buildings, she can’t help but be curious.

She tries to speak, but all she hears is a loud bang, and she feels herself being pushed to the ground. Her head hits the pavement hard, but she doesn’t have time to process anything as she hears another bang, and the sound of a man screaming.

“Come on, we have to go. Now.”

She’s being pulled up, and then she notices it begins to rain. She looks around dazed as she starts to feel Jungeun pull her, and blinks. Wait, her stuff. “My stuff,” She speaks, voice slurred a bit, and the rain comes down a bit harder.

*

Jungeun deems it safe for them to stop, even if they’re all wet, Jiwoo’s mascara running down her cheeks. She spins around, impatient, as Jiwoo starts to whine about her stuff again.

“Do you not realize someone just tried to fucking kill you?”

Jiwoo frowns angrily at her, her hair sticking to her forehead and cheeks. “Oh, I did. Maybe I’m trying to deal with the shock by asking about my damn stuff. It was so much money, you know?”

Jungeun pushes the other woman, and Jiwoo trips and falls. She lands on her butt and glares up at Jungeun, eyes reflecting the red neon light from the sign above them. “I could give fewer fucks about your precious clothes, got it? I need you to understand the gravity of what is happening to you.” Jungeun tilts her head, her fake eye glitching a bit from the amount of water entering it. Jiwoo doesn’t move her gaze, only seeming to get angrier.

“I don’t like you,” Jiwoo hisses, and it surprises herself and Jungeun. But she doesn’t let it show.

Jungeun scoffs. “I don’t need you to like me, I just need to protect you.”

They glare at each other as thunder rolls across the sky, and Jungeun sticks her hand out. Jiwoo spits to her side and takes her hand.

As they stand, there’s another roll of thunder, but it’s otherwise quiet with the sound of rain and their breathing. Jiwoo squeezes her hand, hard, hoping it would hurt. Jungeun squeezes back.

*

When Jiwoo gets back, she falls into her mattress and cries. Jiwoo didn’t even take off her shoes, just trails water and dirt across the floor as she walks into her bedroom and sobs. She should call her uncle. No, she should have someone take her to visit him. What had he done? Why her? Why now?

She cries until she feels herself curl into herself, going silent. She thinks about the way she hissed at the other woman before, and the feeling she got when she happened. She had been so angry about everything, being watched, being almost shot, it made her chest burn. It was not a normal burning, it was as if there was a fire in her chest.

She sniffs, and she feels a firm hand on her back. “Do you want to shower?”

Jungeun. Jiwoo stays still before she sniffs and sits up.

“Yes. I would like that very much.”

___

Hyejoo walks in her apartment, dropping her keys onto the wooden floor before walking to the living room. She’s the only one here, and she throws her bag on the couch before the door is swinging open. She jumps up in shock, before Hyunjin is quickly walking towards the bathroom, but not before Hyejoo sees the blood running down her arm.

“Holy shit, what happened to you?”

Hyunjin turns on the faucet and sticks her arm under the water, before she looks into the mirror, into Hyejoo’s eyes, grinning. “Had an accident on the bus, no big deal.”

“No, no big deal?”

Hyejoo blinks before she walks next to the woman and looks at her arm. “If you get killed on the way home, who will help me pay rent?”

Hyunjin laughs, as she opens the mirror cabinet and pulls out the cleaning alcohol. “Help me patch it up?”

They end up sitting on the floor, Hyunjin eating strawberry chips from a bag, and Hyejoo wrapping her arm up slowly after pulling pieces of glass out of the large gash. “Holy shit,” she mutters again. “What happened to you?”

Hyunjin hisses as Hyejoo secures the bandage on her arm. “I ran into someone I knew.”

“And they attacked you? Was it a fucking animal?”

Hyunjin shrugs. Hyejoo squeezes her arm, making Hyunjin flinch before she lets the arm fall. “How was your day?”

Hyejoo blinks in disbelief, and she leans back on her palms. The lightbulb in the bathroom flickers, and she sighs. “I’m still waiting if that woman will give me a call.”

“That cop?”

Hyejoo nods, and the light flickers again. Hyunjin leans in and rests her head on Hyejoo’s lap, still chewing on the chips. “I just hope you know what you’re doing. You know, all this Kang family, and the cop shit. Just be careful. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you.”

“Not pay rent?”

“Oh, I would’ve done that anyway.”

___

Sooyoung has a gash above her eye, and she holds a bottle of wine over it while Jinsol looks through her bag. “Why don’t you have basic supplies?”

“I’m not usually the one,” Sooyoung removes the wine bottle and pops it open. “Bleeding.”

Jinsol walks over holding a large cloth and the last bits of rubbing alcohol. “Don’t drink that,” she says, taking the bottle away. “It thins your blood.” Sooyoung pouts, then hisses as Jinsol applies the cloth to the gash suddenly.

“Fuck, that stings.”

“Mmhmm.”

They sit in silence for a while, as Jinsol cleans the cut. When she’s done, she plants a slow kiss onto Sooyoung’s brow, and Sooyoung feels herself relax. She didn’t even notice how tense she was until Jinsol let out an amused breathe, pulling back. Sooyoung looks up at her, Jinsol grinning a bit before she leans up and kisses her. They both close their eyes, and Sooyoung holds onto Jinsol’s waist from where she sits on the stool. There’s a soft blue light coming from Sooyoung’s bedroom, and other than that it’s dark. It’s a slow kiss, she needs it, and she pulls her bottom lip a bit before Jinsol giggles, pulling away.

“Are you going to tell me who that was on the bus?” Jinsol smiles, leaning back more as Sooyoung moves to kiss her again, and instead kisses her cheek. There’s a moment’s pause, and Sooyoung inhales.

“You know, with this job, you get many enemies.”

“Oh, don’t I.”

Sooyoung squeezes her waist a bit, before shutting her eyes. Her mind drifts, to a time where she was younger, not yet in this city. When she still had taste, before the jobs went wrong.

“It just turns out my enemies are my old friends.”

___

Hyejoo sees the other girl on her ride to her job. She had been on the comm with Gowon, who was complaining about how busy it would later when she noticed her.

The woman with her purple hair adjusts her cap as she climbs onto the bus, and they make eye contact. It seems like time pauses for a bit before the girl smiles and nods at her, walking past her.

Hyejoo doesn’t know why she couldn’t stop thinking about that girl, but it made her jump a bit when she gets a comm from an unknown number.

“Hello?”

‘ _Hello, Olivia Hye, this is Wong Kahei.'_

___

Yerim breathes in a bit, shifting the aid in her ears a bit as she listens. It was a gift from Haseul for her birthday a while ago, the ability to wire phone numbers and listen to who they call. She’s been waiting all day, and now she has a lead.

She blinks at the back of the girl’s head as she whispers a time into the phone, and some random restaurant. The bus pulls to a stop, and the girl walks off, and Yerim disconnects the wire. She has enough information. She just wanted to see Wong Kahei for herself.

Despite herself, she finds herself thinking about the girl, Olivia, even as she goes home. She wonders why.

**Author's Note:**

> /makes strange noise/  
> a lot of shit happens and i just want chuulip to fall in love among other things that count as future spoilers. that's it. i have a twitter, but it''s private. just know, if you ever scream about this series, i see it. 
> 
> hope you enjoyed, leave a comment, it makes me feel better.


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